


Afraid To Sleep

by TheSightlessSniper



Series: Recovery [2]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Adult Ciel Phantomhive, Angst, Angst with a touch of fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Non-Explicit, Out of Character, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Sebastian Might Have A Heart, mentions of past rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:49:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSightlessSniper/pseuds/TheSightlessSniper
Summary: His eyes slid shut, cheek pressed into the demon’s collarbone as a single tear slipped out. ‘I’m tired, Sebastian.’
‘Then sleep, my lord,’ the echoing voice came, rumbling below his ear.
‘…I mean, I’m tired of being afraid to sleep.’





	

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to do a follow-up 'Never Doubt That I Care For You', and I've had a half-written oneshot floating around my laptop for a while. So I polished it a little and decided to post it.
> 
> Contains mostly inexplicit references to the rape that Ciel went through in the first story in the series.

It was many years before Ciel would allow anyone but Lizzie or Sebastian touch him.

The rapist was long gone. The man who had violated his body was dead; soul reaped by Grell in a moment of compassionate rule-breaking. Despite the contempt they still held for each other, she had made less attempts on his life since, and he no longer held as much animosity.

The flinching, the additional nightmares, the tensing whenever he was near an unfamiliar person, though…that had never left.

Sebastian poured the hot tea into the cup, placing it in reach while the lord tended to his business at his desk. Five years had been kind to the boy, who had grown into a devastatingly handsome young man. Every bit the blend of his mother and father, and a popular face to be seen talking to at events; if you were important enough for Ciel Phantomhive to take note of, you were of the social elite.

It was this face that Sebastian would not like to admit was attached to the object of his desires.

Five years since the encounter with the hunter. Five years since the first night he had lain on Ciel’s bed with him and soothed him to sleep with comforting magic he hadn’t even known he was using. Five years of continuing to do so in order for the young lord to sleep well enough to function. It had left him wanting more…but never on terms other than Ciel’s.

He was a demon, a devil…but even Sin itself had limits in their depravity; indeed, even Lust, the deadly Sin themselves, in all their depraved and filthy sexual acts, would not even seek gratification through non-consensual action: ‘ _There is no fun if they say no to it. Their silly little heart wouldn’t be in it at all. I can’t allow that_.’

Sebastian had been a mere fledgeling at the time, unsure of what the incarnate Sin had meant, but as an ages old demon now, Lust’s distant words had circled through his head more than a few times since the night Ciel had been raped.

Ciel sipped the hot drink, one eyebrow quirking. ‘You added vanilla to the chamomile?’

‘I thought the blend was rather relaxing, my lord. The perfume it emits, it is rather pleasant.’

A thoughtful nod. ‘Yes…could do with a touch of honey.’

Sebastian shook his head and smirked. ‘And ruin your teeth?’

‘Teeth are not the worst thing to lose, Sebastian.’ It had been meant as a joke, but Ciel visibly tightened up, humour instantly leaving him as he put the cup back down and glanced at the notes in one of his ledgers. ‘I should sleep soon. I have a meeting tomorrow about the strange happenings at the school for young ladies.’

 

He couldn’t go on like that.

Ciel stood at the window, staring into the night as Sebastian prepared his bath.

Not a single night had passed since that night where he hadn’t needed the demon inappropriately near to him as he slept. Awakening to crimson eyes every morning, and falling asleep to them every evening; Ciel shouldn’t have kept the butler soothing him to sleep, and he should have been keeping a close eye on their actions and setting clear boundaries.

Instead, he found himself captivated…and curious.

Puberty had been late to have an effect. With every involuntary adolescent erection, he had been scared by his own body, terrified to explore what it could do. He knew of the mechanics from Sebastian’s carefully and tactfully curated biology lessons, but his only practical knowledge of sex was pain; agonising pain that left him recoiling and unable to sleep at night. When he had finally experimented with bringing himself to orgasm, he had promptly finished and descended into a panicked asthmatic episode which Sebastian had been forced to soothe him through.

The orgasm had been pleasurable and petrifying, filling him with guilt, and loathing, and fear in the mix of the thrilling haze— this had been what the hunter, the pig, had been seeking for himself when he had forced his way into him.

To know Sebastian had probably also known exactly what he had been doing during said attack made him feel filthy, tainted, unworthy of the mulling soul he housed.

_Unclean. Impure. Worthless—_

‘My lord?’

The quiet call jolted him from his preoccupation, and he turned to look at Sebastian standing in the threshold between bathroom and bed chamber.

The butler bowed his head. ’Your bath is ready.’

 

Sebastian rubbed the cloth along the pale shoulders before him, pressing his fingertips into one of the blades with a frown. His master was as tense as a bow string, and he felt the discomfort set deep.

He pressed gently on the space again, then dug his thumb into it and moved it firmly, and instantly a sigh fell from Ciel’s lips.

As he pulled away, the young man turned his head and stared. ‘What did you…’

‘My lord?’

‘What was that you did? Just now, with your thumb?’

Smiling mildly, Sebastian raised one of his masters arms and began foaming soap over them. ‘It was a simple massage technique, my lord. When tension builds, you can feel it under the skin, and in the muscles.’

A hum of acknowledgement. ‘I see.’

‘If you are curious, my lord, when you are finished in your bath, I can prepare some warm lavender oil and give your shoulders a slightly deeper treatment.’

Ciel tensed tighter, and Sebastian silently cursed. That suggestion, as unusually innocent as his intentions were, was most likely too much, too brazen. _He will most likely be awoken by night terrors now…_

‘It might help me sleep better, I suppose. If you could, Sebastian?’

That was a surprise. Nevertheless, the demon shook away his surprise, and nodded in confirmation. ‘Certainly, my lord.’

 

By the time Sebastian was halfway through the massage, Ciel was almost asleep. Between the scent of lavender in the air, and his butler’s warm, strong hands digging into his sore spots, he was almost drooling over what had once been a clean pillow.

When Sebastian was done, he leaned next to his ear, and through an exhaustion-blurred gaze Ciel took in the handsome face as it spoke to him. ‘My lord, as much as I know you want to sleep, it will be a cold night tonight. I do not recommend sleeping without a nightshirt.’

He went to reply, but the only thing that came out was a garbled mumble. Sebastian chuckled at him, then slowly turned him onto his back to help him sit up.

As the demon stuffed his tired arms through the sleeves of the shirt, he blinked lazily at him. ‘You’ll stay?’

‘As I have every night, my lord.’

‘Thank you.’

‘No need for that. Indeed, I’ve rather—‘ Sebastian cut his sentence short with a strange look, making to remove his tailcoat and waistcoat in preparation.

He quirked a lazy eyebrow. ’You’ve rather what, Sebastian?’

‘…ah. I’ve rather come to enjoy this nightly routine, my lord.’

Ciel’s eyes shot wide open and up to Sebastian’s face, the soft expression ever catching him off-guard. ‘Enjoy?’

‘Yes. Pardon my sentimentality, my lord, but being close to you as you sleep soothes me in a strange way.’

The statement was more than a shock. Ciel suspected for years that Sebastian had thought of him as a pathetic child; what grown young man would need their butler to sleep on the bed next to them— a scandalous concept in its own right— to get more than a few scattered minutes of sleep between memory-induced night terrors?

And here, now, the same demon was telling me that he actually enjoyed the closeness?

His stomach fluttered. ‘What do you mean by soothe?’

‘I mean, my lord, that by holding you as you sleep, I know that you are perfectly safe. I know that no harm can come to you.’

_Or my soul_. Ciel let out a slow sigh. ‘I suppose it is a way for you to know your carefully-prepared meal won’t be snatched away from your plate.’

Sebastian paused as he went to sit on the edge of the bed, staring at him with odd intensity. Neat eyebrows were drawn together, tensed, and his mouth hung open slightly like he wanted to speak. The butler’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, a row of flawless teeth following to draw the bottom one in before he sighed again.

The oil-softened, ungloved contract hand slipped under the fingers of one of his own, lifting it to his mouth as if he were a maiden. ‘My lord, that night five years ago, I failed in my duty as your butler. I failed to protect you. My mistake allowed for you to come to grave harm, both physically and mentally, and even if you had forgiven me for such a monumental failure…forgiving myself is not an option. I cannot undo what they did to you.’

‘Sebastian…’ Ciel faded off, voice soft and chest tight.

The demon’s head bowed, eyes sliding shut. ‘If I could go back to before that night, my lord, I would have sacrificed my own head to the Reapers to have kept you safe. If I had known-‘

‘You couldn’t have known. Sebastian, you couldn’t have. Not with everything he’d done.’

‘I still should have been able to do something.’

‘If you had set foot in that circle to save me, you would have been destroyed instantly,’ Ciel reasoned, but he’d already begun to shake with the force of the memories. The fetid breath in his nose, the knives carving into his legs…the agonising push of a thick length into his dry body…

He reached for the demon’s hand, eyes squeezing shut. ‘Sebastian.’

‘I’m here, my lord.’

They moved together automatically. Sebastian’s arms sought purchase around Ciel’s torso, while the other’s slipped up and around the butler’s neck and held on as they sank back onto the sheets.

His eyes slid shut, cheek pressed into the demon’s collarbone as a single tear slipped out. ‘I’m tired, Sebastian.’

‘Then sleep, my lord,’ the echoing voice came, rumbling below his ear.

‘…I mean, I’m tired of being afraid to sleep.’

The atmosphere shifted. Sebastian tensed below him. ‘…master, I am not so certain that this is the way to quell your fears.’

‘You are the only one I trust to quell them.’

A soft chuckle. ‘Then I most definitely advise you to not.’

‘Sebastian...’ He lifted his head, staring up into the other’s eyes, and that’s when he noticed the demonic glow. The one that should have filled him with abject fear but instead was his only solace.

As much as he was the only one who could get him past this, he couldn’t force him. It was the one thing he couldn’t, didn’t want to, order Sebastian to do. And he would not.

‘If it isn’t something that you want to do, then I will not make you,’ he sighed defeatedly and made to settle back down, but the demon stopped him, keeping him in place.

Sebastian stared back at him, raising a hand to stroke his cheek. ‘Lack of want is not the issue, my lord.’

‘Then what is?’

The hand stalled next to his hairline. ‘The issue is…intimacy must be taken slowly. And they do not begin with penetrative acts. They begin here-’

And that was when Sebastian leaned in and kissed him.

There was no filthy teeth sinking into his lip. No slimy muscle pushing between his lips and smothering his tongue in bitterness. No lashes whipped into his legs with a thin switch, or gashes to his flesh with a knife. There was only Sebastian’s silken lips against his own, applying only the lightest of pressure and staying for a few seconds before pulling slowly away.

The demon’s eyes fluttered open, staring softly into his own, and Ciel blinked back slowly.

His gaze went from eyes, to lips, back to eyes as he spoke. ‘What...?’

The previously oil-smothered hand stroked a thumb down his cheek again, head tilting affectionately. ‘If you really intend to let go of your fear of touch, my lord, then it will take time. And until a time where you do not flinch the slightest at my hand, I will go no further than this,’ He leaned back in, breathing over his lips again, ‘a kiss.’

The candles faded and extinguished with a flick of his other hand, and Ciel found himself pulled into the familiar nightly embrace.

And for the first time for as long as he could remember, that night he fell asleep with a confused but comfortable smile on his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> There may be more...depending on whether my muse comes back from its extended vacation soon...little shit is keeping me waiting!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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